Veggen ("The Wall") is the first in a series of eight Norwegian advertisements that show us the tragic consequences of a miraculous discovery. [more inside]
posted by knapah
on May 28, 2016 -
27 comments

On behalf of the MeFites of Norway: It has come to our attention that somebody has let slip that "totally Texas" (in Norwegian "helt texas") is used as an expression to convey that some event is crazy or totally out of control. After decades, the Americans now know. An investigation into the leak will be made. Thank you.
posted by Harald74
on Oct 22, 2015 -
132 comments

Everyone has probably seen wheelchair accessible cars and vans, but this custom Hitachi ZX210LC-5 (servicable translation) is probably the only wheelchair accessible excavator around. It came about as a joint project between the Norwegian welfare and labour administration (NAV) and the construction firm Jakhelln Entreprenør in Lillestrøm, Norway, when operator Tim Knutsen, who lost use of his legs after a traffic accident in 2006, needed work. Video in this article (translation of article text).
posted by Harald74
on Sep 19, 2015 -
7 comments

"The biggest pop star in America today is a man named Karl Martin Sandberg. The lead singer of an obscure ’80s glam-metal band, Sandberg grew up in a remote suburb of Stockholm and is now 44. Sandberg is the George Lucas, the LeBron James, the Serena Williams of American pop. He is responsible for more hits than Phil Spector, Michael Jackson, or the Beatles." [more inside]
posted by p3on
on Sep 18, 2015 -
154 comments

A college near Oslo is offering students a one-year course in traditional Viking skills and crafts. The students learn how wood and metal crafts, including sword forging, as well as skills such as roof thatching and traditional bread baking. The school is part of the Norwegian folkehøgskule, or “folk college”, system, in which many students spend a year between school and university learning life skills at a local college.
posted by acb
on Sep 3, 2015 -
19 comments

The wetsuitman.Last winter two bodies were found in Norway and the Netherlands. They were wearing identical wetsuits. The police in three countries were involved in the case, but never managed to identify them. This is the story of who they were.
posted by elgilito
on Jun 16, 2015 -
31 comments

It was out of this world that the thirty-two-year-old Anders Behring Breivik stepped when, on the afternoon of July 22, 2011, he set out from his mother’s flat in Oslo’s West End, changed into a police uniform, parked a van containing a bomb, which he had spent the spring and summer making, outside Regjeringskvartalet, lit the fuse, and left the scene. While the catastrophic images of the attack, which killed eight people, were being broadcast across the world, Breivik headed to Utøya. That was where the Workers’ Youth League had its annual summer camp. There Breivik shot and killed sixty-nine people, in a massacre that lasted for more than an hour, right until the police arrived, when he immediately surrendered.

Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, flew teenage fashion bloggers, Anniken Jørgensen, Frida Ottesen and Ludvig Hambro, to the Southeast Asian country’s capital of Phnom Penh, where they experienced a modicum of a Cambodian textile worker’s life for a month in 2014. Their experience is the subject of a five-part reality show available online, titled "Sweatshop - Deadly Fashion." [more inside]
posted by gemutlichkeit
on Jan 26, 2015 -
37 comments

Norway, which is not part of the Euro currency cooperation, has new design for its bank notes. Whereas the older note design from the 90s featured prominent Norwegians, the theme for the new currency is the ocean. One side features a pixelated motif from design giants Snøhetta, and the other side features detailed nautical images designed by The Metric System. Visual News has some coverage here, and you can look through all the submissions, including the discarded ones, in a Norwegian language PDF from Bank of Norway here. The winning design will be worked over slightly to incorporate security features, and the new bills will be in circulation from 2017.
posted by Harald74
on Oct 9, 2014 -
30 comments

"Stand Still, Stay Silent" is the follow-up to Minna Sundberg's successful webcomic "A Redtail's Dream" (previously), but instead of a 550 page Finnish fantasy tale, it's a post-apocalyptic but still very Scandinavian story intended to run for years. After 10 months of almost-every-weekday pages, she has taken a short break for the end of 'Book One' and it's a good time to catch up. (SPOILERS INSIDE, but reading from the beginning is still strongly recommended) [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop
on Sep 12, 2014 -
10 comments

The Challenge of Celebrating Ramadan in the Land of the Midnight Sun"Six years ago, Sandra Maryam Moe and the sheikh spent months exchanging emails. Is it allowed to eat and drink even though it isn't yet dark outside, Moe wanted to know? And if it is, when does the daily fasting period begin and end? When are the prayer times? Moe described in detail the dilemma facing her community and the sheikh sent her question after question. He too was wary of becoming the originator of a new practice."
posted by Omnomnom
on Jul 26, 2014 -
53 comments

Norway seems to be particularly good at making interesting museums. If you're touring, the museum of magic is spell-binding. The museum of knitting is a real purl. The petroleum museum is a gas. The Lofoten Stockfish museum is off the hook. And the Norsk Hermetickk-museum is about the history of sealing things in cans. [more inside]
posted by Joeruckus
on Jul 25, 2014 -
9 comments

Pop/ska duo The Monroes had a big hit in Norway with Sunday People in 1983. Perhaps the tallest musical duo ever they were often referred to simply as 4 meters of pop. Sadly, last year theyboth died of cancer. Their second hit was Cheerio.
posted by sidra
on Apr 14, 2014 -
3 comments

Piip-show is a live webcam focused on a coffee shop for birds. No birds around? You can rewind the video to look for them, or check out the highlight videos and snapshots below.
posted by moonmilk
on Mar 31, 2014 -
19 comments

In a study and trial somewhat breathlessly reported as Norwegian troops get unisex dorms, the Norwegian Armed Forces has tried out unisex dorm rooms with two women and four men to a room, and consider the experiment a success, with better unit cohesion and lower rate of sexual harassment as results. [more inside]
posted by Harald74
on Mar 25, 2014 -
38 comments

If there's a literary equivalent of reality television right now--albeit one with more reflections on the cultural taboos surrounding dead bodies and the lingering consequences of the Holocaust--it's Karl Ove Knausgaard's sprawling autobiographical novel My Struggle (Min Kamp). [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead
on Mar 19, 2014 -
19 comments

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